


The Beast of Bladenboro

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Cryptozoology, Gen, Monster Hunters, XF Cryptid Challenge 19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 17:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18997180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Mulder and Scully go to North Carolina to hunt a lesser-known cryptid.





	The Beast of Bladenboro

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: S5, after "Detour"  
> A/N: for the XF Cryptid Challenge 19.

Scully opened the door to a dark office. The beam of the projector caught dust like amber. On the screen was a photograph of a cow, its brown coat matted with blood. Mulder, in the shadows in his desk chair, worried at his lips with his knuckle.

"I'd say chupacabra, but it's not a goat," Scully said calmly, shedding her overcoat and hanging it by the door. She set her bag by the desk and walked over to examine the image. "The neck has been broken, possibly the jaw. Those would seem to be somewhat atypical presentations."

"Puncture wounds," Mulder pointed out. "And the corpse was drained of blood. That's consistent with suspected chupacabra predation."

"And not with other predators," Scully agreed. "Most of the local wildlife would presumably prefer the flesh to the blood."

"Unless it's vampire coyotes," Mulder said. 

 

Scully shook her head. "Not even you could embrace the notion of vampire coyotes."

"You might be surprised," he said, pushing himself out of his chair and reaching for an envelope on the desk. "Either way, we've been called in to investigate the Beast of Bladenboro, North Carolina. It may be a town of less than two thousand people, but someone's got a good friend in Washington."

Scully took the proffered envelope. "We're flying into Myrtle Beach?"

"I took the liberty of extending our trip through the weekend," Mulder said, slouching into one hip. "You might want to pack your swimsuit along with your hiking boots."

"I can't imagine the accounting office will be happy about that," she said.

"My treat," he told her. "A little welcome-back gift. Not particularly timely, but I thought a little sunshine might be apropos."

"Hmm," she said. 

"We'll handle the Beast of Bladenboro and then we'll have a little downtime," he continued. His eyes were soft in the dim light. "No Mothmen this time." 

"The Beast of Bladenboro," she repeated flatly. 

He shrugged. "What's in a name, Scully?"

She sighed, but she couldn't help the curve of her lips.

\+ + + + 

They drove from Myrtle Beach to Bladenboro. It was the kind of place where every route was the scenic route, all state highways and backroads. The motel at the edge of town was shabby but clean. They met their contact at the local police station. Sally Hopkins, a lean white woman in her thirties, looked nervous. She stood at the desk, arms crossed, her flannel shirt and her jeans both worn and her boots edged with mud. She stood out in a room full of people in uniform, dressed in her own standard-issue. Afternoon sun slanted in through the windows and highlighted the dark circles under her eyes and the lighter strands in her brown hair, clearly bleached by the sun rather than a salon. The police, mostly men and mostly white, skirted her but didn't shun her, acknowledging her with nods that she returned. Most of the town's small population was white, as far as Scully had been able to tell from their drive in. It was an insular place, down on its luck and looking for a beast to blame. Scully hoped that beast wasn't an isolate woman this time. She'd seen it happen too many times before.

"Sally Hopkins?" Scully said, as if she wasn't sure.

"You the FBI?" Sally asked, stepping forward.

"How could you tell?" Mulder joked, tugging at the lapels of his suit. "Fox Mulder. This is Dana Scully." They shook hands. Hopkins' grasp was firm and dry. 

"Not a lot of tie wearers around here," Hopkins said. "Come on. I'll take you out to the farm."

"We'll follow you," Scully said quickly, imagining herself wedged into the middle of a bench seat in a pickup truck, bracing herself with a hand on Mulder's thigh.

"Suit yourself," Hopkins said, but it was kind. 

The road out to Hopkins' farm wasn't as bad as Scully had feared, but she was still glad they'd taken the rental car as she jostled in her seat. She flipped through photographs from a packet Hopkins had brought: years' worth of images from farms around the county, heifers and sheep with their jaws broken, the marks of large paws in the dirt next to them.

"All right, former Guide," she said. "Paw prints with no claw marks."

"Big cats," Mulder told her. "Retractable claws. It's canids and bears who leave claw marks. The Beast of Bladenboro is reported to be cat-like, but the size of a bear, with enormous feet and fangs."

"Does your modifier apply to both the feet and the fangs?" she asked.

"Of course," he said. "That's how it sucks the blood."

"Of course," she murmured.

Hopkins' farm was tidy and well-maintained, but like everything else in town, looked like it had never really known prosperity. Scully's pumps sank into the mud. Hopkins reached into the truck and held out a pair of boots as broken-in as her own.

"Here," she said. "They don't look like much, but you'll be able to get around."

"Thank you," Scully said. Mulder offered his arm to lean on as she balanced on one foot at a time, changing out her shoes for the boots. She tossed her pumps into the rental car. Hopkins took them around the farm, pointing out the relevant features: the barn, the trough where the cattle watered, the fence that looked like something big had run into it, the fur caught in the barbed wire. Mulder rubbed the tuft of it between his fingers and then handed it to Scully. She took it gingerly. The fur was soft, slightly greasy, so dark brown it almost looked black, although a few strands had tawny tips.

"This is the fur of the Beast?" she asked, her voice catching only slightly on the name of the thing.

Hopkins shrugged. "Nothing else around here looks like that."

Mulder crouched, studying the prints in the mud. "Whatever it is, it's a heavy son of a gun."

"It would have to be, to take out a healthy young cow with that kind of brute force attack," Scully said. She squinted out at the fields. The herd was clumped together in the corner closest to the barn. 

"If you can stick around, it pretty much comes out at night," Hopkins said. "I've got a big pot of chili on the stove. It would save you going back into town."

"We should have changed at the motel," Scully said, looking down at her feet in her borrowed boots.

"We can change and come back," Mulder told her. "Chili sounds good."

Hopkins smiled, her eyes lingering on Scully. "Best chili in town. I can tell you that. Nobody beats my grandaddy's recipe." She rubbed her hands on her jeans. "I'm sure I've got some extra clothes in the linen closet. My brother left a lot of stuff behind when he moved to Charlotte after college."

They ended up in the small bedrooms of the farmhouse, changing into borrowed clothes. Scully rolled up Hopkins' jeans and tightened the belt Hopkins gave her. She still hadn't gained back the weight she'd lost during her illness and Hopkins' clothes hung off her, but they were worn soft, comfortingly lived-in. She put on thick socks before slipping her feet back into Hopkins' boots and clomped her way back out into the hall, carrying her folded suit in a paper grocery bag. Mulder was there, looking like a farmer's daughter's dream, lean and rangy. 

"Howdy, partner," he said.

"I don't think this is that kind of establishment," Scully said.

The smell of chili floated up the narrow staircase. Mulder raised one eyebrow. "Ready for dinner?"

"Score one for Southern hospitality," Scully said, and followed him down the stairs.

The chili was good. They sat around a table in the kitchen, only taking up three of the six chairs. Hopkins talked about her family, growing up on the farm, and trying to make a living. "I'm the only one left," she said, spooning up chili from her bowl. "Nobody else wanted to keep trying to make a go of it. They all moved to the city. I don't blame them. Between the price of feed, the weather, the vet bills, and the rest of it, it's not an easy job."

"And then a beast comes along," Mulder said, reaching for the bag of Fritos and sprinkling a handful into his bowl. "That's got to cut into your profits."

"It's not like I can butcher it afterwards," Hopkins said. "I wish it would just eat the damn things. Instead, I've got to get rid of a whole cow that's pretty much perfectly usable except for the way it's been killed."

"Plenty of butchers would love to have their animals pre-drained of blood," Mulder quipped.

"We don't have too many halal or kosher butchers around here," Hopkins said with a wry smile, "and anyway I don't think that's the approved technique."

"It must be lonely out here," Scully said, surprising herself. Hopkins studied her for a moment and then smiled. 

"I'm used to it," she said. "It's simpler this way. I don't have to argue with anybody about the way things ought to be done." She bit her lip gently. "Around here, there aren't a lot of people looking to keep my kind of company anyway." She held Scully's gaze, her smile crimping a little at the corners, and blushed just slightly. 

"Ah," Scully said, feeling a tingle of warmth in her stomach that couldn't be attributed to the spices in the chili. "I can see why solitude might be preferable."

"But then there's beasts that suck your cattle dry," Hopkins said with a shrug. 

"Just in case you didn't have enough else to deal with," Mulder said, a genial grin lighting up his face. 

"My granddaddy was a Senator, at least," Hopkins said. "He still had a friend or two willing to do me a favor. All this" - she gestured broadly - "it's a little beyond my expertise."

"Your contacts called in the experts," Scully assured her. 

"Nobody knows more about beasts than we do," Mulder said. 

"That's a load off my mind," Hopkins said. "Do y'all want dessert? It isn't much, but I've got half a blackberry cobbler and some ice cream."

"That sounds delicious," Scully told her.

Hopkins put the chili bowls in the sink and dished out cobbler all around. The crust was crisp and buttery and the blackberries had just the right amount of tang. Hopkins blushed again when they complimented her on it.

"It's nothing," she said. "Somebody's got to do something about all those brambles."

"Let us do the dishes," Scully said impulsively, after they'd licked the last drops of blackberry goo and melted ice cream from their spoons. "If the beast is nocturnal like you say, there's no point in going out after it until it gets dark."

"If that's what you want," Hopkins said dubiously. Mulder rolled up the sleeves of his borrowed shirt.

"All in a day's work," he said, moseying over to the sink. Scully couldn't help watching the way the jeans hugged his ass. She joined him, plunging her hands into the hot bubbles. Hopkins put the chili and what was left of the cobbler away in the fridge and watched them as they scrubbed the dishes clean. 

"Is this what you do on all your cases?" she asked.

Mulder laughed under his breath. "This isn't even what I do at my apartment."

"It's the least we could do," Scully told her. "Thank you for all your hospitality. You certainly didn't have to feed us." 

"You might find some good food in town," Hopkins said, "but it kinda depends on your tolerance for grease. It's the least I could do when you're helping me with this problem no one else believes exists. Coyotes, my ass."

It was dark by the time they were done, or dark enough. Scully dried her hands on a kitchen towel and went to check her weapon. Hopkins had a rifle. She offered a shotgun to Mulder, who shook his head. "Scully's a better shot than I am."

"You want it?" Hopkins said. "Kicks like a damn mule."

"I'll take it," Scully said, feeling reckless. She holstered her weapon and took the shotgun and a handful of shells from Hopkins. 

They marched out into the dark, Hopkins shouldering a pack that held extra ammo, a bag of jerky, and the supplies to start a fire, along with a heavy flashlight. Mulder and Scully each had their own flashlights. Scully tried to carry the shotgun lightly, as if she were accustomed to it. 

"If you weren't here, I'd put the cows in the barn," Hopkins said, undoing the latch of the fence and ushering them into the field. "But I think it'll be easier to track in the field. They won't go into the woods at night anymore."

"They've got more sense than we do," Mulder joked. He carefully pulled the gate closed and Hopkins latched it again. 

"They do," she agreed.

"Just show us which way to go," Scully said, trying to sound brave. Hopkins led them across the field and into the shadow of the trees. 

"And now we wait," Hopkins said.

They waited. Mulder shifted from foot to foot in the shadows. The herd of cattle eddied in their corner of the field. In the center of the herd, a few of them dozed, heads low and hips cocked, but the cows on the outside were alert. From somewhere deep in the woods, there came a scream that chilled Scully to the bone. It hit some primal center in her brain that people had forgotten about for centuries. She was frozen to the spot, her feet unable to move. Some part of her she wasn't in control of swung the shotgun up. She had just clawed her way back to life, goddammit. She wasn't going to be killed in the woods by some beast of legend. Hopkins had her rifle up too, sighting down the barrel. Behind them, the cattle lowed nervously. 

"Be ready," Hopkins whispered. The wind blew Scully's hair into her eyes. She shook her head impatiently. Mulder reached over and smoothed her hair back, his palm resting on her head, his other hand holding his weapon steady. The Beast screamed again, an unearthly sound that haunted the woods. They stayed where they were: three humans, soft but not entirely defenseless in the dark. 

After ten minutes or so, the cattle stopped calling. Hopkins glanced over her shoulder. 

"I think it's gone for tonight. We were lucky this time."

"It sounds like a panther," Mulder said, shivering, his hand still on Scully's head. "But the prints you showed us - it's bigger than that."

"Much bigger," Hopkins confirmed. "And we haven't had panther around here in most of a century. Even if we had, panther don't drain their prey. The Beast is something else."

Mulder lifted his hand away. "Now that it knows we're hunting it, I wonder what it will do."

"It knows?" Scully's voice rose despite her attempt to control it.

"When the wind changed," Hopkins said in a distracted tone, gazing into the woods. "It carried our scent. I think that's why it yelled again."

Scully was suddenly exhausted. She let the shotgun droop, careful to keep it away from anyone's toes. "So we look for it when the sun comes up?"

"I think that's all we can do," Hopkins said. "I'd offer to put you up here, but I'm sure you've got rooms already."

"We do," Mulder said. "But we appreciate it."

They walked back across the field. Hopkins held out her hand for the shotgun and Scully handed it over as Mulder dug the keys to the rental car out of his pocket.

"Your clothes," Hopkins said, passing them the grocery bag.

"I almost forgot," Scully said. "Thanks for everything, Ms Hopkins."

"Thank y'all," Hopkins said. "And call me Sally."

"Thank you, Sally," Mulder said, popping the locks of the rental. "We'll be back in the morning."

"Early enough and you'll get breakfast," Hopkins said. "Drive safe."

They clattered back over the backroads into town, not talking much. The motel parking lot was barely lit by a couple of buzzing streetlights. They fumbled with the keys to their rooms.

"Panther?" Scully asked, the key still in the lock.

Mulder nodded. "Panther, mountain lion. They all sound like that, apparently. I almost pissed myself if we're being honest."

"If we don't make it to the beach, Mulder, just know that I didn't want to die being sucked to death by a bear-sized cougar," Scully said.

"Noted," Mulder told her. "We'll do our best to make sure that doesn't happen."

"Hopkins needs somebody," Scully said. "I'm glad we're here."

"Me too," Mulder said. "G'night. Sleep tight."

"Don't let the beasts bite," Scully retorted, and went into her room. She thought she'd sleep badly, but after a shower, she passed out on the cheap bed, Hopkins' clothes neatly folded at the foot of her bed. When she woke up, Hopkins' clothes were still on her feet. Scully picked them up and tucked them into a bag. She recognized something of herself in Hopkins: a lonely woman, so entwined in her work that it was part of her. A woman pushing constantly against the current, suddenly swamped in mystery. She wanted to help Hopkins, in whatever way she could. 

They had breakfast at the diner down the road. At least they blended in, dressed in jeans and t-shirts. Scully had a long-sleeved chambray on she hadn't worn for years. Since Idaho, maybe. The Air Force base. Scully sipped at her coffee while Mulder tried to bait the staff into telling him about the Beast. They were treated to a twenty-minute rant from the short order cook about one time in high school that he swore, to God and on his mother's grave, that he glimpsed the Beast, a lithe mass slipping through the undergrowth at the edges of the high school football field. "It was after the mascot," the cook finished triumphantly. "The other team, they had a big ole goat as their mascot, or a ram, or some shit. Anyway, you couldn't have planned better Beast-bait. If she loves anything, it's a big ole lambchop."

"She?" Scully said, picking up her awful coffee.

"Only a female would stick around here to bother Sally Hopkins," the cook said, sneering. "I reckon she's a mama Beast. Got cubs to feed." 

"That would explain the uptick in killings," Mulder said. 

"If she had cubs and they weren't old enough to hunt yet, she would have to provide for them," Scully murmured. "But she doesn't take the corpses home."

"She could still be nursing," Mulder said. "Or maybe the cubs can't handle such large prey. Maybe she's bringing home rabbits and squirrels for the little ones." 

"Rabbits and squirrels," the cook said, shaking his head. "Maybe rabbits and squirrels for now. But who knows what she'll haul back to her lair next, if you take my meaning. I'm telling my kids to get their asses home PDQ after school." 

"You think the Beast will go for humans next?" Mulder asked, poking his fork into the last of his eggs. Scully dipped her spoon into a puddle of grits gilded with butter.

"It's only a matter of time, man," said the cook. "It's only a matter of time."

The drive back out to the Hopkins place seemed shorter. They knew it now. Scully looked at the trees on the side of the road, wondering if she'd see one with claw marks ripping through the bark. She imagined the Beast stretching up to catch at the tree with its claws, casually rending the wood as it flexed. 

"Cubs?" she said to Mulder.

"Beastlets," Mulder said, grinning to himself. 

"Do you think Sally's in danger?" Scully asked. 

"I think Sally can handle herself," Mulder said, touching his fingertip to his lips as if he had a sunflower seed. "But we'll help if we can."

Sally was glad to see them, offered them good coffee and fresh biscuits. Mulder and Scully each took one, broken open and buttered, despite their diner breakfast. They sat on the porch and talked around their experience in the field the night before. Scully shivered, remembering the scream, and Sally reached out and patted her shoulder. 

"It got all of us," she said. "The sound it made - it was like something from another world."

"We know all about that," Mulder joked. 

After the coffee was gone, they tromped back out into the fields. Scully had the shotgun just in case, and Hopkins carried the rifle. Hopkins led them back into the woods. She and Mulder argued amiably about which direction the scream had come from. It was Scully who discovered the tracks, not far from where they'd been. They followed them cautiously, Hopkins picking a path through the woods that she knew best. A quarter mile or so into the woods, Scully caught a glimpse of pale wood. "Look," she said. There were scratches on the tree, dug in deep like the thing had gripped the tree and dragged itself down with a luxurious languor. They stretched from above Mulder's head nearly to the ground. 

"She's big," Mulder said in a tone that was almost reverent. 

"Mulder," Scully chided. 

"My understanding of what has to be done about the situation doesn't change my admiration for the undiscovered, Scully," Mulder said.

"Your what?" Hopkins said. 

"Agent Mulder has a bit of a, uh, passion for things that can't be explained," Scully said. "Legends. Mysteries. Things that go bump in the night."

"The Beast," Hopkins said.

"If we could trap her somehow," Mulder mused, "she could be relocated." 

"By whom?" Scully asked. "Barnum and Bailey? Who would have the facilities to transport something like that safely over that kind of distance?"

"And where would you take her if you could?" Hopkins asked. 

"Somewhere secluded," Mulder said. "One of the Dakotas, maybe. Montana. Wyoming. Plenty of room there for legends." 

"Wide open spaces," Hopkins said. "Ranchers out there, they've got plenty of cattle." 

"The cook at the diner had an interesting theory," Scully said, shifting the weight of the shotgun in her arms. "He thinks the Beast has cubs."

"I thought about that too," Hopkins said, a crease between her brows. "Might explain why she's so bold lately. There've been reports of the Beast since the 1950s, but she doesn't hunt all the time, at least not around here."

"Do we really want to find her lair, then?" Scully asked. "I can't imagine she'll defend herself less ferociously if she does have cubs."

"So we wait for night," Hopkins said. "Let her come to us alone. We'll be armed and we'll be ready." 

"And then what happens, happens," Mulder said. 

"I wish it could be another way," Hopkins said. "I really do. But y'all have seen what she can do." She gestured to the tree. "And y'all have seen my place. It's all I can do to hold on."

They picked their way back to the house, trying to read the signs in the woods, looking for older trails. The Beast had been busy. They found tracks all over, newer prints layered over older ones. 

"She owns these woods," Mulder said.

"More than I ever will," Hopkins sighed. 

They had lemonade on the porch this time instead of coffee, and little sandwiches made out of the leftover biscuits, and they ate looking out over the grazing herd in the pasture. Hopkins spent the afternoon doing all the chores she hadn't gotten to. They offered to help, but she waved them off. "Y'all don't know what you're doing," she said. "It would take me twice as long to explain. You just plan our attack." 

"Sally," Scully said, "we're here to help you, and we'll do our best, whether it means spooking the Beast or killing her."

"I don't want that magic gone, you know?" Hopkins said. "You know, the Beast is a scary story they tell the children, but she's our scary story. The Beast of Bladenboro. This place - we don't have much, but we have a Beast. But if it comes down to her or me, I just can't not choose myself." 

"I wonder if we could trap her cubs," Mulder mused.

"Her theoretical cubs," Scully reminded him.

"Theoretically, if we did, we could use them as bait to lure her away." Mulder shrugged. "It would be worth a shot."

"If she would follow them," Scully argued. "You can't wage Sally's life and her farm on the maternal instincts of a hypothetical animal."

"If she has cubs," Hopkins said slowly, "I know y'all aren't farming types, but I'm sure you had to take biology at some point."

"She would have a mate," Scully said. She looked at Mulder, saw the horrified fascination dawning in his eyes.

"It's not exactly the Beast with two backs," he said, "but what if we are dealing with two of them?"

"Two of them plus cubs," Hopkins pointed out.

They all looked at each other.

"This either ends with a mob, a forest fire, or a cleanup team," Scully said at last. "The best case scenario involves only one of the three."

"Can we put together a cleanup team?" Mulder asked. "That sounds like the best option at this point."

"I've got a couple of friends at the vet school in Raleigh," Hopkins said. "That's only a couple of hours away. They could be here by nightfall. They'd at least have some kind of handle on how to deal with her."

"Is there a zoo?" Mulder asked. 

"You want to put the Beast in a zoo?" Scully asked. "Mulder, if she got loose...at least the lions have grown up in captivity. She's a wild animal."

"It's an option," Mulder said. "Better than killing her."

"Is it?" Hopkins said in a voice that was a little wistful. "She's a wild thing. It seems a shame to put her in a cage, even if she is killing my cattle."

Mulder sighed. "I don't want to see her put somewhere she can be gawked at either, but alive is better than dead and stuffed on some trophy hunter's wall. Don't you think that's the direction we're headed, if she keeps killing livestock?"

"I'll make the call," Hopkins said at last, tugging the ponytail holder from her hair and fingercombing the creases out. Scully's scalp throbbed in sympathy.

"I'll call the zoo," Mulder said. 

As it turned out, it wasn't hard to assemble a team of animal enthusiasts to track down a beast of legend. Mulder passed the phone to Hopkins so that she could give directions to the trackers from the zoo while he chatted with her vet friends about how to handle creatures like the Sasquatch.

"Now what?" Scully said, when all the calls had been disconnected.

"Now we wait," Hopkins said. She sighed and scrubbed her hands over her face. When she looked up again, she was smiling. "Dinner?"

Last night's chili was even better as leftovers, and the remnants of the cobbler, heated up, were still tasty. Hopkins smiled more tonight, but she seemed more tired. They swapped work stories, told the tale of the Jersey Devil and of Big Blue. 

"He ate my dog," Scully said. 

"Yeah, but that dog ate his previous owner," Mulder argued. "You would have had to get rid of it anyway."

"I would not," Scully snapped. "He was a gift."

"That dog was a sprained ankle away from biting your nose off," Mulder said. "I could see the lust for human flesh in its beady little eyes."

"He's exaggerating," Scully told Hopkins. "Queequeg was sweet."

"He drooled every time he looked at me," Mulder informed them. Hopkins laughed. 

"I mean, you're not my type, but I can see why somebody would be drooling over you," she teased. 

"Thank you," Mulder said smugly. He turned to Scully. "See?"

She rolled her eyes. "Please don't encourage him," she said to Hopkins. 

"She never notices when someone's interested in her," Mulder told Hopkins. "Don't take it personally."

Scully and Hopkins both blushed. "Ridiculous," Scully muttered. 

"That wasn't what I was saying," Hopkins protested. "I mean, I know you're not...this is a job." 

"Exactly," Scully said, but she tried to apologize to Hopkins with her eyes. For what exactly, she wasn't sure, but there was a moment of connection where their gazes caught and held, a brief second of understanding that under different circumstances, nothing or everything might change. 

They were saved from any further conversation by the sound of vehicles in the yard. Their various and sundry expert began to pile out, greeting them excitedly, and the next few hours were taken up by introductions and planning. Hopkins spread a local map and a survey of her land across her kitchen table, making notes in pencil as the others leaned in, nodding. Scully, to be useful, brewed another pot of coffee. It wasn't where her strengths lay, but neither was planning the dose of animal tranquilizer it would take to bring down a Beast, or tracing deer paths through the woods. Hopkins shot her a grateful glance. 

Scully had thought this story would end with a mob in the woods, and she found, as they all prepared themselves, that she wasn't entirely wrong. Hopkins' vet school friends had brought their friends. The professionals from the zoo had brought their colleagues and a hell of a lot of tranquilizer darts. Mulder regaled them with tales of an invisible elephant. She'd almost forgotten that one. 

"Y'all have had a lot of adventures," Hopkins said to her, the two of them stealing a moment to nurse their cups of coffee. "I didn't know the FBI could be like that."

"Mostly it isn't," Scully said. "It's just him." She nodded towards Mulder.

"I can see that," Hopkins said, leaning against the counter. "I can see why you like him."

"I don't," Scully said automatically, but Hopkins snorted. 

"For a couple of Feds, neither of y'all is great at subterfuge," Hopkins told her. "Listen, take it from someone who's made that mistake. If I've learned anything in my life, it's that you don't get that many chances to be with a person who values and cares for you exactly the way you are. I've seen that, the last few days. But y'all don't have to take my advice."

"It's complicated," Scully said. "I almost died, not that long ago. I'm still figuring out what parts of my life are worth salvaging, in case it happens again."

"Sounds like a dilemma," Hopkins said. "But if you ever decide to throw it all away, I could always use another pair of hands around here."

"Thank you," Scully said. "I'll consider it, although my skills run more to medicine than agriculture. I trained as a pathologist."

"How about that," Hopkins said, studying her. "You've got all kind of dimensions, Agent Scully."

"I've found that most people do," Scully mumbled into her coffee cup. "Call me Dana."

"It'll be the end of an era if we catch this thing," Hopkins mused, staring at the chaos in her kitchen and living room. 

"You can put up a plaque," Scully offered. "Charge admission. The Beast of Bladenboro laired here. It might be a way to make up for the loss of your cattle, at least."

Hopkins chuckled. "You sound like Agent Mulder." 

"We've been working together for years," Scully allowed. "Some of his particular way of thinking might have rubbed off."

"Whatever happens, I'm grateful you both came," Hopkins said. "It helps not to feel like I'm the only one who notices what's going on."

"We're glad to be able to help," Scully told her. "Usually we're the ones nobody will listen to."

Hopkins stared into her coffee cup. "Before y'all showed up, I wondered if I was going crazy. If maybe it was time to give it up and turn this place into a bed and breakfast or just sell it all off and start over in the city. I feel better now." She looked up at Scully. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Scully said, reaching over to squeeze Hopkins' arm gently. She hesitated. "If I've learned anything in _my_ life, it's that when something feels like home, you need to hold onto it with both hands."

"Amen," Hopkins said. "I'm gonna make another pot of coffee. I expect the talking will be over soon. You good?"

"I'm good," Scully said. She pushed up off the counter. She glanced at the clock. It was only 11:30, but it felt later. "Beasts hunt at midnight, don't they?"

"Of course they do," Hopkins said easily, dumping used coffee grounds into a compost container. "It's tradition."

Scully found Mulder, the nucleus of the activity, holding court in the living room. He looked up at her and grinned and for a moment, she was the center of everything. "You ready?" he asked. His anticipation was palpable. 

"I'm ready," she said. "Sally's making more coffee."

"Sal, you're a lifesaver," one of the vets called into the kitchen. 

"I save your life, you save my farm," Hopkins shouted back. 

"Sounds fair to me," Mulder cracked. 

The mob, corralled by Mulder and Hopkins, finally got out the door: tranquilizer rifles, flashlights, thermoses of coffee, first aid kit, and all. Scully carried the shotgun again, the safety on, wishing it had a strap so that she could sling it across her back. They were a rowdy group, crashing through the woods. Scully was sure the Beast, or the Beasts, would hear them. "We should have done this during the day," she said to Mulder, huffing a little as she tried to keep up with his long legs. He was surprisingly comfortable walking through strange woods at night. Maybe it was his history as a Guide, or maybe it was half a lifetime of striding into the shadows. 

"Maybe so," he said. "But you can't hunt a beast in the light, Scully. The narrative demands that we meet the Beast on her own terms, on her own ground, at the witching hour."

"Oh, the narrative," she said. "So I can blame the narrative for all our ill-considered forays into areas that would have been kindly described as 'condemned', 'forbidden', or 'deathtraps'." 

She could hear the amusement in his voice. "Forgive us our trespasses, Scully. A beast must be sought in the shadows. Where would be the honor in hunting her in the light?"

"We might actually find her," Scully said. "She would be in her lair like all good beasts, rather than hunting us."

A scream shivered through the woods, turning Scully's veins to ice, and then a shot ricocheted in the dark. The scream grew higher and faded into a snarl. "Hopkins," Scully said, then they were both running, pelting through the trees. They yelled her name as they went, part of a stampede that bellowed for her. _Sally, Sally._ They should scatter, Scully thought briefly, but none of them had survival instincts anymore. And she couldn't run any direction but toward Hopkins, to find whatever they would find. 

Hopkins knelt in the center of a milling crowd lit in glimpses by flashlights. She was gasping. Scully passed the shotgun to Mulder and fell to her knees at Hopkins' side. She pushed Hopkins' hair back, checked her pupils in the light. There was no visible damage, but when she reached for Hopkins' throat, the pulse was a fast flutter under her fingertips. 

"Sally, can you talk to me?" she murmured. 

"I'm okay," Hopkins said. She shook her head, as if to clear her vision. "I'm okay. But I saw her."

"You saw her?" Mulder demanded. 

"She was beautiful," Hopkins said. "Huge. Her fangs - they were longer than my hand." She looked up at Scully with wondering eyes. 

"We saw her too!" said one of the vet school people. Scully hadn't been able to keep their names straight at the house. She didn't care to try now, not when her priority was making sure that Hopkins was as whole and healthy as she seemed. Scully knew better, these days, than to trust that appearance. 

"What did she look like?" Mulder asked.

"Feet like goddamn dinner plates," said the vet. "We had the light on her and her eyes glowed like a cat's, but she had a snout more like a bear. We couldn't make out much, but I saw that."

"I shot at her," Hopkins said. "I thought she was going to charge."

"I think you hit her," the vet said. "She was real upset."

"I'll be back, Scully," Mulder said, and she couldn't stop him from reconnoitering in the dark, so she let him go and turned back to Hopkins.

"You're all right," Scully said. She turned to the others. "You, you, and you, keep your flashlights trained on Sally. The rest of you, watch the perimeter. Lights and guns. If you so much as see a glint of eyes, trank it. We can sort it out later."

"Should we call the police?" somebody asked.

"Call the police and you're just bringing in more potential prey," Scully said. "We've got numbers. We can handle this."

"She knows what she's doing," Hopkins said to the rest of them. 

Scully took Hopkins' pulse again. Steadier, but still fast. "We're going to get out of these woods, Sally." 

"Hold your fire," Mulder said, coming back into the wavering circle of light. 

"Mulder?" Scully said. He crouched beside her.

"There's blood on the leaves," Mulder said. "You hit her, Sally. I don't know if she's gone because she's wounded or pissed off or both, but you left your mark."

"Good to know all those tin cans didn't die for nothing," Hopkins said.

"I have the feeling it's going to be a hell of a long night," Mulder said.

From somewhere outside their ring of light, there came a low grumbling growl that sharpened until it was a scream. Mulder swung the shotgun up, training it on the sound, but from the other side of the circle, there was another growl. 

"They're circling us," Scully said. She could hear the tenseness in her voice, the words drawn tight like a wire.

"There are at least two of them," Hopkins said in wonder. "You were right."

"Thank the cook at the diner," Mulder said. 

The screams continued, two voices layered together, and then three more, higher-pitched piping calls.

"Cubs," Scully said. She raised her voice. "Anyone with an arm of any kind, anything that moves out there."

"We're outnumbered," Hopkins said. 

"We usually are," Scully said grimly. She stood up and offered Hopkins a hand. Hopkins accepted it and hauled herself to her feet. Mulder passed the shotgun back to Scully.

"Better you than me," he said. She lifted it to her shoulder. 

"Let's hope neither of us have to use it," she said. They stood back to back to back, the center of a tightening circle, a last rampart against the wilderness as the Beasts screamed outside.

Scully didn't know later how long it had been in the dark, hemmed in by the Beasts, the retorts of the rifles echoing at intervals. She knew it must have been hours before the sun rose enough for them to see the woods around them. Their circle broke apart gradually, as if they couldn't believe they'd made it through the night. They had tranquilized four deer and a raccoon, but no Beasts. Her mouth tasted bitter and fruity, the lingering notes of carefully rationed sips of coffee. Hopkins shivered against her back, shock and the early morning chill both contributing to the jitters. Scully put an arm around her, rubbing Hopkins' arm to warm her. Hopkins leaned into Scully's side. 

"We made it," she said wearily. 

"Mm," Scully agreed. 

"Do you think they're gone?" Hopkins asked.

"I'm sure they are," Scully said. "We know they were intelligent. I'm sure they wouldn't linger now that they know we're hunting them."

"I don't know about you, but I could go for some breakfast," Mulder said. "Think the cook at the diner would comp us some bacon in return for tales of the Beast?"

"We should have recorded it!" one of the zoo people said, slapping herself on the forehead. "Why didn't I bring a tape recorder? Some idiot's going to tell me it was just cougars. No way in hell that was cougars."

One of the other zoo people was sealing bloody leaves into a sandwich bag. "At least we got something we can analyze. And there's fur over here too." A vet took pictures of the scene, rolling the film forward after each shot. 

"So that's it?" Hopkins said. "It's over?"

"You might have some of these people stick around a few days," Mulder told her. "I'm sure they will anyway. There's a lair to find. They'll go over these woods with a fine-toothed comb."

"But you're leaving." It wasn't a question.

"Our part of the investigation is over," Scully said. "We've got a report to write." She exchanged glances with Mulder. "We'll keep in touch."

They stumbled back to the house, trying not to trip over the loose branches in the woods and the mole hills in the pasture. Scully handed the shotgun over to Hopkins, who handled it easily. She walked them to the car. 

"Your clothes," Scully said suddenly. She reached into the back seat and pulled out the bag. Hopkins shrugged.

"Keep 'em," she said. "A souvenir. It's better than a novelty spoon that they sell at the gas station."

"Thank you," Scully said. 

Mulder opened his door and leaned on it. "You don't want to get breakfast with us? I don't know about you, but I could use some hashbrowns, a shower, and a nap, in that order."

"Let me put the guns away," Hopkins said, smiling a little shyly. Scully watched the truck in the rearview mirror as it followed them into town, dust billowing behind it.

They ate breakfast at the diner. Scully was starving, slashing into her eggs and slathering ketchup on her hashbrowns. Mulder regaled the patrons with the tale of their night of horror. The astounded cook gave them everything on the house and tried to make them leave with pie. They hugged Hopkins goodbye in the parking lot outside.

"Thank y'all," she said, her voice rough. "For believing me. For last night."

"All in a night's work," Mulder said. He yawned. "I hope you get some sleep, Sally. Don't let those animal scientists keep you up all night again."

"I won't," Hopkins promised.

"Stay in touch," Scully said. She reached into her pocket and handed Hopkins a card. "This has our office number and my cell. Call anytime."

"Every good legend has a sequel, huh?" Hopkins said, tucking the card away. "Gotta say, Dana, I hope I only ever call with good news."

Scully smiled at her. "Me too," she said. 

Hopkins swung into her truck and waved one last time as she drove out of the parking lot. They watched her go, Mulder leaning on his open door.

"You know the beach won't be anywhere near this exciting," Scully said as they got into the car. 

Mulder laughed. "For once, I hope not," he said, and put the car in gear.

**Author's Note:**

> My research came mostly from [Dimension 1111](https://www.dimension1111.com/cryptids-and-creatures-in-cryptozoology.html), the [Bladenboro Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bladenboro,_North_Carolina), and Google Maps to figure out where all the relevant institutions were in relation to Bladenboro. Everything I know about Myrtle Beach comes from _Magic Mike XXL_.


End file.
